from εἰδωλολατρεία, composed of εἰδος, _image_, and λατρεύειν,
_to serve_, the worship and adoration of false gods; or the giving those
honours to creatures, or the works of man’s hands, which are only due to
God. Several have written of the origin and causes of idolatry: among
the rest, Vossius, Selden, Godwyn, Tenison, and Faber; but it is still a
doubt who was the first author of it. It is generally allowed, however,
that it had not its beginning till after the deluge; and many are of
opinion, that Belus, who is supposed to be the same with Nimrod, was the
first man that was deified. But whether they had not paid divine honours
to the heavenly bodies before that time, cannot be determined; our
acquaintance with those remote times being extremely slender. The first
mention we find made of idolatry is where Rachel is said to have taken
the idols of her father; for though the meaning of the Hebrew word
תרפים, be disputed, yet it is pretty evident they were idols. Laban
calls them his gods, and Jacob calls them strange gods, and looks on
them as abominations. The original idolatry by image worship is by many
attributed to the age of Eber, B. C. 2247, about a hundred and one years
after the deluge, according to the Hebrew chronology; four hundred and
one years according to the Samaritan; and five hundred and thirty-one
years according to the Septuagint; though most of the fathers place it
no higher than that of Serug; which seems to be the more probable
opinion, considering that for the first hundred and thirty-four years of
Eber’s life all mankind dwelt in a body together; during which time it
is not reasonable to suppose that idolatry broke in upon them; then some
time must be allowed after the dispersion of the several nations, which
were but small at the beginning, to increase and settle themselves; so
that if idolatry was introduced in Eber’s time, it must have been toward
the end of his life, and could not well have prevailed so universally,
and with that obstinacy which some authors have imagined. Terah, the
father of Abraham, who lived at Ur, in Chaldea, about B. C. 2000, was
unquestionably an idolater; for he is expressly said in Scripture to
have served other gods. The authors of the Universal History think, that
the origin and progress of idolatry are plainly pointed out to us in the
account which Moses gives of Laban’s and Jacob’s parting, Gen. xxxi, 44,
&c. From the custom once introduced of erecting monuments in memory of
any solemn covenants, the transition was easy into the notion, that some
deity took its residence in them, in order to punish the first
aggressors; and this might be soon improved by an ignorant and
degenerate world, till not only birds, beasts, stocks, and stones, but
sun, moon, and stars, were called into the same office; though used,
perhaps, at first, by the designing part of mankind, as scare-crows, to
overawe the ignorant.
Sanchoniathon, who wrote his “Phenician Antiquities,” apparently with a
view to apologize for idolatry, traces its origin to the descendants of
Cain, the elder branch, who began with the worship of the sun, and
afterward added a variety of other methods of idolatrous worship:
proceeding to deify the several parts of nature, and men after their
death; and even to consecrate the plants shooting out of the earth,
which the first men judged to be gods, and worshipped as those that
sustained the lives of themselves and of their posterity. The Chaldean
priests, in process of time, being by their situation early addicted to
celestial observations, instead of conceiving as they ought to have done
concerning the omnipotence of the Creator and Mover of the heavenly
bodies, fell into the impious error of esteeming them as gods, and the
immediate governors of the world, in subordination, however, to the
Deity, who was invisible except by his works, and the effects of his
power. Concluding that God created the stars and great luminaries for
the government of the world, partakers with himself and as his
ministers, they thought it but just and natural that they should be
honoured and extolled, and that it was the will of God they should be
magnified and worshipped. Accordingly, they erected temples, or
_sacella_, to the stars, in which they sacrificed and bowed down before
them, esteeming them as a kind of mediators between God and man.
Impostors afterward arose, who gave out, that they had received express
orders from God himself concerning the manner in which particular
heavenly bodies should be represented, and the nature and ceremonies of
the worship which was to be paid them. When they proceeded to worship
wood, stone, or metal, formed and fashioned by their own hands, they
were led to apprehend, that these images had been, in some way or other,
animated or informed with a supernatural power by supernatural means;
though Dr. Prideaux imagines, that, being at a loss to know how to
address themselves to the planets when they were below the horizon, and
invisible, they recurred to the use of images. But it will be sufficient
to suppose, that they were persuaded that each star or planet was
actuated by an intelligence; and that the virtues of the heavenly body
were infused into the image that represented it. It is certain, that the
_sentient_ nature and divinity of the sun, moon, and stars, was
strenuously asserted by the philosophers, particularly by Pythagoras and
his followers, and by the Stoics, as well as believed by the common
people, and was, indeed, the very foundation of the Pagan idolatry. The
heavenly bodies were the first deities of all the idolatrous nations,
were esteemed eternal, sovereign, and supreme; and distinguished by the
title of the natural gods. Thus we find that the primary gods of the
Heathens in general were Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Apollo, Mercury, Venus,
and Diana; by which we can understand no other than the sun and moon,
and the five greatest luminaries next to these. Plutarch expressly
censures the Epicureans for asserting that the sun and moon, whom all
men worshipped, are void of intelligence.
Sanchoniathon represents the most ancient nations, particularly the
Phenicians and Egyptians, as acknowledging only the natural gods, the
sun, moon, planets, and elements; and Plato declares it as his opinion,
that the first Grecians likewise held these only to be gods, as many of
the barbarians did in his time. Beside these natural gods, the Heathens
believed that there were certain spirits who held a middle rank between
the gods and men on earth, and carried on all intercourse between them;
conveying the addresses of men to the gods, and the divine benefits to
men. These spirits were called demons. From the imaginary office
ascribed to them, they became the grand objects of the religious hopes
and fears of the Pagans, of immediate dependence and divine worship. In
the most learned nations, they did not so properly share, as engross,
the public devotion. To these alone sacrifices were offered, while the
celestial gods were worshipped only with a pure mind, or with hymns and
praises. As to the nature of these demons, it has been generally
believed, that they were spirits of a higher origin than the human race;
and, in support of this opinion, it has been alleged, that the supreme
deity of the Pagans is called the greatest demon; that demons are
described as beings placed between the gods and men; and that demons are
expressly distinguished from heroes, who were the departed souls of men.
Some, however, have combatted this opinion, and maintained, on the
contrary, that by demons, such as were the more immediate objects of the
established worship among the ancient nations, particularly the
Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans, we are to understand beings of an earthly
origin, or such departed human souls as were believed to become demons.
Although the Hindoo inhabitants of the East Indies deny the charge of
idolatry, using the same description of arguments as are so
inconclusively urged by superstitious Europeans in defence of image
worship, it is still evident that the mass of the Hindoos are addicted
to gross idolatry. The gods of Rome were even less numerous, certainly
less whimsical and monstrous, than those at Benares. In Moore’s Hindoo
Pantheon are given exact portraits of many scores of deities worshipped,
with appropriate ceremonies, and under various forms and names, by
different sects of that grossly superstitious race. Some of these
portraits are of images colossal to a degree perhaps unequalled by any
existing statues; others are exceedingly diminutive. Some are metallic
casts, and some apparently extremely ancient, which exhibit every
gradation of art from the rudest imaginable specimen, up to a very
respectable portion of skill, so as to approach to elegance of form, and
to ease and expression of attitude.
The principal causes which have been assigned for idolatry are, the
indelible idea which every man has of God, and the evidence which he
gives of it to himself; an inviolable attachment to the senses, and a
habit of judging and deciding by them, and them only; the pride and
vanity of the human mind, which is not satisfied with simple truth, but
mingles and adulterates it with fables; men’s ignorance of antiquity, or
of the first times, and the first men, of whom they had but very dark
and confused knowledge by tradition, they having left no written
monuments, or books; the ignorance and change of languages; the style of
the oriental writings, which is figurative and poetical, and personifies
every thing; the scruples and fears inspired by superstition; the
flattery and fictions of poets; the false relations of travellers; the
imaginations of painters and sculptors; a smattering of physics, that
is, a slight acquaintance with natural bodies and appearances, and their
causes; the establishment of colonies, and the invention of arts,
mistaken by barbarous people; the artifices of priests; the pride of
certain men, who affected to pass for gods; the love and gratitude borne
by the people to certain of their great men and benefactors; and,
finally, the historical events of the Scriptures ill understood. “One
great spring and fountain of all idolatry,” says Sir William Jones, “was
the veneration paid by men to the sun, or vast body of fire, which
‘looks from his sole dominion like the god of this world;’ and another,
the immoderate respect shown to the memory of powerful or virtuous
ancestors and warriors, of whom the sun and the moon were wildly
supposed to be the parents.” But the Scriptural account of the matter
refers the whole to wilful ignorance and a corrupt heart: “They did not
like to retain God in their knowledge.” To this may be added, what
indeed proceeds from the same sources, the disposition to convert
religion into outward forms; the endeavour to render it more impressive
upon the imagination through the senses; the substitution of sentiment
for real religious principle; and the license which this gave to
inventions of men, which in process of time became complicated and
monstrous. That debasement of mind, and that alienation of the heart
from God, and the gross immoralities and licentious practices which have
ever accompanied idolatry, will sufficiently account for the severity
with which it is denounced, both in the Old and New Testaments.
The veneration which the Papists pay to the Virgin Mary, and other
saints and angels, and to the bread in the sacrament, the cross, relics,
and images, affords ground for the Protestants to charge them with being
idolaters, though they deny that they are so. It is evident that they
worship these persons and things, and that they justify the worship, but
deny the idolatry of it, by distinguishing subordinate from supreme
worship. This distinction is justly thought by Protestants to be futile
and nugatory, and certainly has no support from Holy Writ.
Under the government of Samuel, Saul, and David, there was little or no
idolatry in Israel. Solomon was the first Hebrew king, who, in
complaisance to his foreign wives, built temples and offered incense to
strange gods. Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who succeeded him in the
greater part of his dominions, set up golden calves at Dan and Bethel.
Under the reign of Ahab, this disorder was at its height, occasioned by
Jezebel, the wife of Ahab, who did all she could to destroy the worship
of the true God, by driving away and persecuting his prophets. God,
therefore, incensed at the sins and idolatry of the ten tribes,
abandoned those tribes to the kings of Assyria and Chaldea, who
transplanted them beyond the Euphrates, from whence they never returned.
The people of Judah were no less corrupted. The prophets give an awful
description of their idolatrous practices. They were punished after the
same manner, though not so severely, as the ten tribes; being led into
captivity several times, from which at last they returned, and were
settled in the land of Judea, after which we hear no more of their
idolatry. They have been, indeed, ever since that period, distinguished
for their zeal against it. See Image.
IDUMÆA is properly the Greek name for the land of Edom, which lay to the
south of Judea, and extended from the Dead Sea to the Elanitic Gulf of
the Red Sea, where were the ports of Elath and Ezion-Gaber. But the
Idumæa of the New Testament applies only to a small part adjoining Judea
on the south, and including even a portion of that country; which was
taken possession of by the Edomites, or Idumæans, while the land lay
unoccupied during the Babylonish captivity. The capital of this country
was Hebron, which had formerly been the metropolis of the tribe of
Judah. These Idumæans were so reduced by the Maccabees, that, in order
to retain their possessions, they consented to embrace Judaism; and
their territory became incorporated with Judea; although, in the time of
our Saviour, it still retained its former name of Idumæa, Mark iii, 8.
The proper Idumæans, or those who remained in the ancient land of Edom,
became in process of time mingled with the Ishmaelites; the two people
thus blended, being, from Nabaioth, or Nabath, the son of Ishmael,
termed Nabathæans; under which names they are frequently mentioned in
history. See EDOM.
_to serve_, the worship and adoration of false gods; or the giving those
honours to creatures, or the works of man’s hands, which are only due to
God. Several have written of the origin and causes of idolatry: among
the rest, Vossius, Selden, Godwyn, Tenison, and Faber; but it is still a
doubt who was the first author of it. It is generally allowed, however,
that it had not its beginning till after the deluge; and many are of
opinion, that Belus, who is supposed to be the same with Nimrod, was the
first man that was deified. But whether they had not paid divine honours
to the heavenly bodies before that time, cannot be determined; our
acquaintance with those remote times being extremely slender. The first
mention we find made of idolatry is where Rachel is said to have taken
the idols of her father; for though the meaning of the Hebrew word
תרפים, be disputed, yet it is pretty evident they were idols. Laban
calls them his gods, and Jacob calls them strange gods, and looks on
them as abominations. The original idolatry by image worship is by many
attributed to the age of Eber, B. C. 2247, about a hundred and one years
after the deluge, according to the Hebrew chronology; four hundred and
one years according to the Samaritan; and five hundred and thirty-one
years according to the Septuagint; though most of the fathers place it
no higher than that of Serug; which seems to be the more probable
opinion, considering that for the first hundred and thirty-four years of
Eber’s life all mankind dwelt in a body together; during which time it
is not reasonable to suppose that idolatry broke in upon them; then some
time must be allowed after the dispersion of the several nations, which
were but small at the beginning, to increase and settle themselves; so
that if idolatry was introduced in Eber’s time, it must have been toward
the end of his life, and could not well have prevailed so universally,
and with that obstinacy which some authors have imagined. Terah, the
father of Abraham, who lived at Ur, in Chaldea, about B. C. 2000, was
unquestionably an idolater; for he is expressly said in Scripture to
have served other gods. The authors of the Universal History think, that
the origin and progress of idolatry are plainly pointed out to us in the
account which Moses gives of Laban’s and Jacob’s parting, Gen. xxxi, 44,
&c. From the custom once introduced of erecting monuments in memory of
any solemn covenants, the transition was easy into the notion, that some
deity took its residence in them, in order to punish the first
aggressors; and this might be soon improved by an ignorant and
degenerate world, till not only birds, beasts, stocks, and stones, but
sun, moon, and stars, were called into the same office; though used,
perhaps, at first, by the designing part of mankind, as scare-crows, to
overawe the ignorant.
Sanchoniathon, who wrote his “Phenician Antiquities,” apparently with a
view to apologize for idolatry, traces its origin to the descendants of
Cain, the elder branch, who began with the worship of the sun, and
afterward added a variety of other methods of idolatrous worship:
proceeding to deify the several parts of nature, and men after their
death; and even to consecrate the plants shooting out of the earth,
which the first men judged to be gods, and worshipped as those that
sustained the lives of themselves and of their posterity. The Chaldean
priests, in process of time, being by their situation early addicted to
celestial observations, instead of conceiving as they ought to have done
concerning the omnipotence of the Creator and Mover of the heavenly
bodies, fell into the impious error of esteeming them as gods, and the
immediate governors of the world, in subordination, however, to the
Deity, who was invisible except by his works, and the effects of his
power. Concluding that God created the stars and great luminaries for
the government of the world, partakers with himself and as his
ministers, they thought it but just and natural that they should be
honoured and extolled, and that it was the will of God they should be
magnified and worshipped. Accordingly, they erected temples, or
_sacella_, to the stars, in which they sacrificed and bowed down before
them, esteeming them as a kind of mediators between God and man.
Impostors afterward arose, who gave out, that they had received express
orders from God himself concerning the manner in which particular
heavenly bodies should be represented, and the nature and ceremonies of
the worship which was to be paid them. When they proceeded to worship
wood, stone, or metal, formed and fashioned by their own hands, they
were led to apprehend, that these images had been, in some way or other,
animated or informed with a supernatural power by supernatural means;
though Dr. Prideaux imagines, that, being at a loss to know how to
address themselves to the planets when they were below the horizon, and
invisible, they recurred to the use of images. But it will be sufficient
to suppose, that they were persuaded that each star or planet was
actuated by an intelligence; and that the virtues of the heavenly body
were infused into the image that represented it. It is certain, that the
_sentient_ nature and divinity of the sun, moon, and stars, was
strenuously asserted by the philosophers, particularly by Pythagoras and
his followers, and by the Stoics, as well as believed by the common
people, and was, indeed, the very foundation of the Pagan idolatry. The
heavenly bodies were the first deities of all the idolatrous nations,
were esteemed eternal, sovereign, and supreme; and distinguished by the
title of the natural gods. Thus we find that the primary gods of the
Heathens in general were Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Apollo, Mercury, Venus,
and Diana; by which we can understand no other than the sun and moon,
and the five greatest luminaries next to these. Plutarch expressly
censures the Epicureans for asserting that the sun and moon, whom all
men worshipped, are void of intelligence.
Sanchoniathon represents the most ancient nations, particularly the
Phenicians and Egyptians, as acknowledging only the natural gods, the
sun, moon, planets, and elements; and Plato declares it as his opinion,
that the first Grecians likewise held these only to be gods, as many of
the barbarians did in his time. Beside these natural gods, the Heathens
believed that there were certain spirits who held a middle rank between
the gods and men on earth, and carried on all intercourse between them;
conveying the addresses of men to the gods, and the divine benefits to
men. These spirits were called demons. From the imaginary office
ascribed to them, they became the grand objects of the religious hopes
and fears of the Pagans, of immediate dependence and divine worship. In
the most learned nations, they did not so properly share, as engross,
the public devotion. To these alone sacrifices were offered, while the
celestial gods were worshipped only with a pure mind, or with hymns and
praises. As to the nature of these demons, it has been generally
believed, that they were spirits of a higher origin than the human race;
and, in support of this opinion, it has been alleged, that the supreme
deity of the Pagans is called the greatest demon; that demons are
described as beings placed between the gods and men; and that demons are
expressly distinguished from heroes, who were the departed souls of men.
Some, however, have combatted this opinion, and maintained, on the
contrary, that by demons, such as were the more immediate objects of the
established worship among the ancient nations, particularly the
Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans, we are to understand beings of an earthly
origin, or such departed human souls as were believed to become demons.
Although the Hindoo inhabitants of the East Indies deny the charge of
idolatry, using the same description of arguments as are so
inconclusively urged by superstitious Europeans in defence of image
worship, it is still evident that the mass of the Hindoos are addicted
to gross idolatry. The gods of Rome were even less numerous, certainly
less whimsical and monstrous, than those at Benares. In Moore’s Hindoo
Pantheon are given exact portraits of many scores of deities worshipped,
with appropriate ceremonies, and under various forms and names, by
different sects of that grossly superstitious race. Some of these
portraits are of images colossal to a degree perhaps unequalled by any
existing statues; others are exceedingly diminutive. Some are metallic
casts, and some apparently extremely ancient, which exhibit every
gradation of art from the rudest imaginable specimen, up to a very
respectable portion of skill, so as to approach to elegance of form, and
to ease and expression of attitude.
The principal causes which have been assigned for idolatry are, the
indelible idea which every man has of God, and the evidence which he
gives of it to himself; an inviolable attachment to the senses, and a
habit of judging and deciding by them, and them only; the pride and
vanity of the human mind, which is not satisfied with simple truth, but
mingles and adulterates it with fables; men’s ignorance of antiquity, or
of the first times, and the first men, of whom they had but very dark
and confused knowledge by tradition, they having left no written
monuments, or books; the ignorance and change of languages; the style of
the oriental writings, which is figurative and poetical, and personifies
every thing; the scruples and fears inspired by superstition; the
flattery and fictions of poets; the false relations of travellers; the
imaginations of painters and sculptors; a smattering of physics, that
is, a slight acquaintance with natural bodies and appearances, and their
causes; the establishment of colonies, and the invention of arts,
mistaken by barbarous people; the artifices of priests; the pride of
certain men, who affected to pass for gods; the love and gratitude borne
by the people to certain of their great men and benefactors; and,
finally, the historical events of the Scriptures ill understood. “One
great spring and fountain of all idolatry,” says Sir William Jones, “was
the veneration paid by men to the sun, or vast body of fire, which
‘looks from his sole dominion like the god of this world;’ and another,
the immoderate respect shown to the memory of powerful or virtuous
ancestors and warriors, of whom the sun and the moon were wildly
supposed to be the parents.” But the Scriptural account of the matter
refers the whole to wilful ignorance and a corrupt heart: “They did not
like to retain God in their knowledge.” To this may be added, what
indeed proceeds from the same sources, the disposition to convert
religion into outward forms; the endeavour to render it more impressive
upon the imagination through the senses; the substitution of sentiment
for real religious principle; and the license which this gave to
inventions of men, which in process of time became complicated and
monstrous. That debasement of mind, and that alienation of the heart
from God, and the gross immoralities and licentious practices which have
ever accompanied idolatry, will sufficiently account for the severity
with which it is denounced, both in the Old and New Testaments.
The veneration which the Papists pay to the Virgin Mary, and other
saints and angels, and to the bread in the sacrament, the cross, relics,
and images, affords ground for the Protestants to charge them with being
idolaters, though they deny that they are so. It is evident that they
worship these persons and things, and that they justify the worship, but
deny the idolatry of it, by distinguishing subordinate from supreme
worship. This distinction is justly thought by Protestants to be futile
and nugatory, and certainly has no support from Holy Writ.
Under the government of Samuel, Saul, and David, there was little or no
idolatry in Israel. Solomon was the first Hebrew king, who, in
complaisance to his foreign wives, built temples and offered incense to
strange gods. Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who succeeded him in the
greater part of his dominions, set up golden calves at Dan and Bethel.
Under the reign of Ahab, this disorder was at its height, occasioned by
Jezebel, the wife of Ahab, who did all she could to destroy the worship
of the true God, by driving away and persecuting his prophets. God,
therefore, incensed at the sins and idolatry of the ten tribes,
abandoned those tribes to the kings of Assyria and Chaldea, who
transplanted them beyond the Euphrates, from whence they never returned.
The people of Judah were no less corrupted. The prophets give an awful
description of their idolatrous practices. They were punished after the
same manner, though not so severely, as the ten tribes; being led into
captivity several times, from which at last they returned, and were
settled in the land of Judea, after which we hear no more of their
idolatry. They have been, indeed, ever since that period, distinguished
for their zeal against it. See Image.
IDUMÆA is properly the Greek name for the land of Edom, which lay to the
south of Judea, and extended from the Dead Sea to the Elanitic Gulf of
the Red Sea, where were the ports of Elath and Ezion-Gaber. But the
Idumæa of the New Testament applies only to a small part adjoining Judea
on the south, and including even a portion of that country; which was
taken possession of by the Edomites, or Idumæans, while the land lay
unoccupied during the Babylonish captivity. The capital of this country
was Hebron, which had formerly been the metropolis of the tribe of
Judah. These Idumæans were so reduced by the Maccabees, that, in order
to retain their possessions, they consented to embrace Judaism; and
their territory became incorporated with Judea; although, in the time of
our Saviour, it still retained its former name of Idumæa, Mark iii, 8.
The proper Idumæans, or those who remained in the ancient land of Edom,
became in process of time mingled with the Ishmaelites; the two people
thus blended, being, from Nabaioth, or Nabath, the son of Ishmael,
termed Nabathæans; under which names they are frequently mentioned in
history. See EDOM.